Michael Heiser was a scholar trained in ancient history and semitic languages who recently died in 2023. His name has become widely popular in the Christian community due to his podcasts, articles, and books such as The Unseen Realm. While his writings have renewed interest in the supernatural character of God and angels, there are concerns in Heiser’s theology rooted in several divergences from Scripture and Protestant confessionalism.

#1: Heiser prioritizes extra-biblical resources

Heiser puts his weight on modern archeological findings, second temple Judaism literature, and ancient near east manuscripts to interpret the Bible. Thus, he prioritizes the written tradition outside the Christian community against the church family’s creeds and confessions.

In contrast, while Scripture is our only infallible and inerrant authority, Protestant Christians take the apostle Paul’s exhortation to heart to guard the “pattern of the sound words” (2 Timothy 1:13-14). Thus, Protestants interpret Scripture with the Church considering the pattern of sound words set forth in her creeds and confessions (i.e., The Nicene Creed and Second London Baptist Confession).

#2: Heiser subverts the Creator-creature distinction

Because Heiser prioritizes extra-biblical resources, he uses texts from the Canaanite religion to formulate his view of the divine council. He presents the angels of the heavenly assembly as divine, a lower god-essence. They are distinguished from the unique and supreme God, Yahweh, yet rule underneath Him as fellow participators of the divine council.

With this understanding, Yahweh is merely the greatest of several divine beings, a “unique species” in Heiser’s words (Michael S. Heiser, “Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?” Hiphil 3 (2006), p. 2). The classic, reformed position opposes this view as it violates the Creator-creature distinction (for example, Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II, p. 121).

To exist even as a unique species is to share in creaturely existence. While it is appropriate in Christianity to describe angels as sui generis or “species unique,” it is not so of the eternal God. God is the Creator; angels are created. Only the Triune God is the divine, eternal, simple, self-sufficient, and immutable Creator, and is therefore unlike angels and man (Psalm 50:21; Hosea 11:9).

In Heiser’s hierarchical structure, the Triune God is lowered, and the angels (or gods) are raised, placing God and angels within the same order. For this reason, it is a “Christian paganism.”

#3: Heiser inverts the salvation story to focus on the divine council’s rebellion, over Adam’s

Instead of using the federal headship of the two Adams as the salvation paradigm (Romans 5), Heiser centers the salvation story on the divine council, who rebelled against Yahweh and led the nations astray. To reverse their rebellion, Christ takes back the nations from the fallen gods, saves and raises up the Church to replace the divine council, and thereby rules over the nations.

Conversely, the biblical, reformed view of redemption is rooted in Adam’s failed federal headship and the imputation of his sin and guilt to humanity. Redemption is accomplished through Christ’s federal headship and double imputation (the sinner's guilt credited to Christ and Christ's righteousness credited to the sinner).

#4: Heiser rejects penal substitution and justification by faith (apart from loyalty)

In his article Did Yahweh Demand Blood for a True Relationship with Him? Part 3: Bloodless Atonement and New Testament Justification, and several other posts, Heiser describes the Reformation’s emphasis on justification, reckoning, or accounting as a book-keeping metaphor. He states that this view is a return to “old world paganism.”

Heiser argues that the forgiveness motif is not satisfactory. He writes, “We all can attain to the ‘faith of Jesus,’ or be credited with his loyalty to the Father by becoming loyal to Jesus himself.” He continues, “I therefore think that we need to reconsider the value of penal substitution. I believe it is moving our theology of sin, and ultimately our theology of God in a harmful direction.”

Scripture and our Protestant confessions teach that the ground for our justification is the righteous obedience of Christ, whereas faith is the instrument through which the sinner receives Him and is justified. Romans 4:5 says it well: “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” It is in sanctification, not justification, where the Spirit progressively transforms our hearts to obey God out of gratitude. 

Summary

Heiser’s views of God, the divine council, the redemptive story, penal substitution, justification, and faith boldly reject Protestant and classical Christianity articulated through its creeds and confessions. He has left his followers with at best a paganistic version of Christianity, and at worst a false view of God and a false Gospel.